The Kind of Leadership They Never Teach You at Work
When you’ve lost so much, the teachers you need often don’t look like the teachers you expect
Healing after a devastating loss isn’t a journey, it’s a reckoning. It’s a torturous, complicated and forced interrogation of everything you once believed about yourself and the world.
It strips you down to bare metal. It destroys your identity, eliminates any sense of safety, and burns the bridge back to the life you had before.
You find yourself on your knees in the ashes of “before,” staring at a landscape you barely recognize, wondering how the hell you’re supposed to keep going or where you’re even supposed to go.
And in that place, when someone chirps about “gifts,” it feels like a slap in the face from someone who doesn’t understand your pain.
A dismissal. An insult to the crushing weight of the cross you’ve been forced to bear.
I get it. For years, I rejected the idea too. I was too enamoured with playing the victim to answer a casting call for a new role. I willingly typecast myself and then blamed the universe for keeping me stuck in the same role.
After my first wife died, it took me nearly seven years to see that tragedy can give as well as take. Cindy’s suicide was a tragedy that, in time, radically altered the trajectory of my life. I became a much more compassionate, empathetic person and oriented my life around being helpful to other people rather than serving myself.
Note: Lest it appear that I’m making myself out to be heroic, I’m also deeply flawed in ways can seem almost impossible to overcome.
My daughter Chloe died almost three years ago. Even amidst the agony, I have always known that this tragedy too would yield treasures that I’d cherish and that would help me heal.
One of them is a young woman named Kyla. She was my daughter’s best friend. Kyla and I weren’t close when Chloe was alive. Chloe was a complicated and deeply hurt young soul. I’ll leave it at that for today.
We met for breakfast shortly after Chloe died. it was two people coming together in shock and grief trying to piece together the various fragments of Chloe’s life into an explanation that made even a sliver of sense.
I remember thinking, “I want to be a positive male role model in this young woman’s life.” Not just as something nice to do but to honour my daughter by showing her best friend some much needed care.
I used to think I was mentoring her. Maybe I still am. But at this point, she mentors me every bit as much. And the reason is simple: she leads herself through her grief with a kind of courage I didn’t have at her age. Sometimes I wonder if I have it even now.
Over the past few years, she’s become deeply grounded in her Christian faith. Meanwhile, I’ve stumbled and lurched my way from atheism to agnosticism to… whatever fragile, emerging belief I’m holding now.
Yesterday, she called to tell me something that had happened at work.
She works as a server in a restaurant. A table of twenty-two came in after leaving the funeral home across the street. It’s the same one where we held my daughter’s service.
They joined hands and prayed before their meal. Something about the sight of that beautiful ritual moved Kyla.
When they were getting ready to leave, Kyla felt compelled, to go back to them. She asked if she could pray with them. She admitted she was nervous and didn’t want to lead it, but wanted to share the moment.
They welcomed her with open arms and prayed together.
That’s the kind of leadership that matters. Leaning into discomfort, being with people in their moment of need and sharing a meaningful moment together. And if we only learned to do this in our personal lives, we’d be missing half the point. It’s just as essential at work.
Listening to her tell the story reinforced that this young woman isn’t simply someone I’m mentoring. She’s walking with me towards whatever comes next.
A friend once coined a term: “Mentern.” Part mentor, part intern. Always teaching, always learning.
Yesterday, talking to Kyla, I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud, or more grateful, to be the intern.
Because sometimes the people we think we’re guiding turn out to be the ones helping us find our way.
So many men are silently fighting battles they don’t know how to win.
Most men try to think their way out of pain. I did too. Hell, I still do at times.
10 Hard Truths Every Man Needs to Hear About Grief is the guide I wish I’d had.
It’s straight talk about what grief does to you, and how to stop getting stuck in it.